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At least almost… all of the new colorways are up. We still have a few we’re adding, probably on Monday, so look for those. I am leaking color. Debra finally put her foot down and said, STOP!! please we are begging you to stop! It is a lot of new recipes for them to learn. Which is fine cause they’ll save for next time.

Here is a list of the new colorway names (the ones with a * beside them won’t be up until Monday) . I’m going to try this week to get descriptions up for all of them. I get to spend the week with, my dear friends Karen and Michael and my two girls, in one of my favorite places on the planet, so I should have some nice writing time.

There’s the Tipsy Clan (with whom I am seriously head over heels,truly, madly and deeply, in love. I’m taking all of them with me to play swatch games with. I’m going to sit on some rocks overlooking the bay and knit tipsy swatches. Excited!!

I have been talking about doing a spinning club for years. I have even gone as far as planning out projects and sourcing for breed specific fibers. It’s been one of those things that always got moved to the back burner as other parts of life and work were more demanding. This past February, when I was at a spinning retreat with Judith, I realized, as I sat there for days and days spinning to my heart’s content, that the time had come and was now or never.

Since this year has been about change, growth, and movement, I’ve decided to do this club a little differently than we do the sock club. If you recall, a month or so ago I asked what you’d like to see in a spinning club, and I tried to incorporate as many of your wishes as I could.

We are starting with small steps, which actually is just how I started the sock club; it just didn’t stay that way for very long. Anyway…for the rest of 2013, we’re offering the spinning club in three individual packages and then, also, as a group of three (with a small discount), which gives you choices!! So if you just want or can afford one, then you have that option. We are offering a limited number to start with, and once we get our bearings, we’ll probably up the number next year. You should know, though, that once we hit our limit ,we will be closing down sign-ups for 2013, which means that if you order the August package and then change your mind a month later, there’s a good chance we’ll be sold out. So just keep that in mind.

We’re starting Rockin’ Whorl with some of my favorite tops: Polwarth, BFL Tussah, and BFL Mixed, Baby Camel, Merino and Silk, and will then work our way into batts and all kinds of other glorious breeds, blends and put-ups and who knows what other fiber wonder. I’m so excited with the prospect of working with so many differing fibers, blends, put-ups, the creative people who make them and what we then can create with them. I am first and foremost a spinner. I love the process of spinning and making yarn and this makes my woolly heart hum with joy. We’ll spin for all kinds of color, we’ll explore different breeds, the best way to process and spin them based on what they are; we’ll talk tons about blending and so much more. There is no end to the twists and turns we’ll take!

I hope you’ll join me on this yarn making journey.

Seasonal Hue Shift Update:

As promised the list of colorways from your wish list that really are up temporarily. We’ll be taking these back to Hue-Spa this Wednesday before 12:00 pm Pacific time.

I think I did that right. Holy moly that was way harder then you would think. I kept deleting the ones that were leaving and leaving the ones that were staying. Obviously time to head to the dye pots!

Before I head to the barn, please join me in welcoming to our LYS family Rebecca Hart and her lovely yarn store, Warm’n Fuzzy in Cary, North Carolina. If you’re in the neighborhood, say hi and stop by she just got a shipment of Blue Moon!

Here is your 10 day colorway wish list. They went live yesterday (Thank you Paula!!)

We’ve yet to decide who really goes after 10 days and who stays. Mostly this is because we have a mega-ton of brand new colors we’d like to share so we’ve an embarrassment of hue riches. A good problem to have.

We are holding our annual Barn Sale in Scappoose, on the first weekend in August.

Last year we added into the mix an open studio dye weekend along with the Barn Sale. Great deals and fun was had by all. So much so that we decided to add the dye aspect again this year.
So along with getting a few bargains you can dye your very own skeins your way with our help. I think of these as dye play days. We’ll set up an indigo vat so you can dip a skein or two while the yarn you painted sets in the steamer. You can bring your lunch and spend the day. Last year we all sat around the fire pit and had our lunch. it was a beautiful weekend!

If you’d like to join us for the sale you can just show up on either Saturday or Sunday between 9:00 and 4:00. If you’d like to play with dye on yarn, we need you to register so we can make sure we can accommodate everyone whose interested. We’ll be adding a registration page to the website on Monday the 17th of June. Spaces are limited so if you are interested please do register so you don’t miss out on the fun.

If you are coming from far afield and need a place to stay the Scappoose Creek Inn is quite lovely and right down the street from Blue Moon.

…at least where color is concerned. It’s cool and damp and most of us would like to see a little more of that bright shining day star and the warmth that comes with it. As much as I’ve wished it to be different, it is still cloudy and damp. I can’t control the weather, even though I have given it a go, a time or two. I am a firm believer in that adage – where there’s a will there’s a way .I don’t think my will is up to the task, cause try as I might there’s still a grey weepy sky today instead of a cherry sunny one.

What I can control with the power of my mind is color on yarn, most of the time. So… below you’ll find a list of the hues that are going to the color spa for a rest. Don’t panic they are not going away forever. We will take them down on Monday the 17th. So if you absolutely need some of them to come live at your house then you have a few days to make that happen. If there a colorways of ours you’d like to see for the summer please let us know in the comments section of this post. We will put all of your suggestions up for about 10 days at which point, some will come down, and others will stay. And yes, I will tell you which colorways are staying and which are only there for that week. We had a ton of fun with this last color change, so we’re pretty excited about this one.

I’m so excited because in two days we start Interval our mystery KAL with our buddy Star Athena. I kind of wish I didn’t know what it was so I could be surprised with all of you. Although after seeing all the wonderful color combo’s leaving here I think that is going to be the surprise at the end for me. I can’t wait to see them all. As I was packing boxes this past weekend I kept marveling at all of the varied and stunning duos. Had I not been on a deadline and a mission I would have photographed every single one of them. I can’t wait to see them all.

All of the regular BFL Fingering has shipped, it left early Monday morning. The new orders this week of the BFL Superwash Fingering we are working on. we’re doing our best in getting those out as fast as we can. We assume that if you ordered at this late date you are not real concerned about starting this Friday. As always if you have questions or concerns please do email us: info@bluemonfiberarts.com

The next few weeks are going to be a blur for me. I’ll try my best to check in but… .

Rabia, my middle child and oldest daughter, is graduating from college. Yay Rabia!! We’re very excited and so very proud of her, especially the me of we. Then a few weeks after that, my oldest child and only son, Narayan, is GETTING MARRIED!!! It’s our first wedding and we are bursting with it all. I am seriously enjoying my mother of the groom role. Mostly because it involves wrangling my son into what he needs to be doing. Since as his mom I kinda excel at that job (tons and tons of practice) all is as it should be. Although just between you and me it is a bit like herding goats. I get another daughter out of this deal, which is all kinds of awesome. I love, love love his beloved, Candace. She’s already a part of our family this puts a nice finish on it all.

So big things for the Newton clan. On a personal level for me it’s really nice to have all of of this light and happy beginnings part of life to celebrate.

Oh… I almost forgot, speaking of beginnings!

Keep an eye out for our Rock’n Whorl Spinning Club announcement in the next week.

I promised Paula and Debra that I’d mention the Barn Sale and Days Save the Date. It’s the first weekend in August.

Off to the barn to make new colors and room for the 10 baby chicks coming our way today.

Welcome Simply Socks Yarn Company! We are delighted to be working with you and are honored that you are carrying our yarn in your store.

As I said in my blog post we are absolutely thrilled to add Simply Socks Yarn Company to our LYS family. Allison and her team are fun, knowledgable and creative.

In 2005, Allison Van Zandt opened Simply Socks Yarn Company in a tiny bedroom of her home, because as an obsessed sock knitter she couldn’t find a huge selection in any one store. Thinking “I can do this better,” soon got her into heaps of exciting trouble when the shop took off, forcing her to quit her day job and eventually open a 3500 square foot sock yarn store in her restored post office in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She has since started two yarn lines of her own, Simply Sock Yarn and Poste Yarn, had two babies, knitted more socks than she can wear, and generally felt like the most fortunate person on the planet. Who couldn’t feel lucky being surrounded by 5 tons of sock yarn every day?

Allison has a devoted staff of three, all equally obsessed with fiber, and all completely awesome. Heather, Rachael and Angela help run the shop, ship out orders, dye yarn, inspire customers, coordinate knitalongs, and motivate thousands of avid sock knitters with their passion and kindness.

Allison says, “Blue Moon Fiber Arts is a perfect fit for my unique shop. Not only do Tina and I have similar ethics in business and passion for yarn and people, but Simply Socks Yarn Company is a destination shop for fiber enthusiasts. It makes sense that we can support our crafters by offering them the best of the best, whether they drive 6 minutes or 6 hours to come visit us.”

Starting today at 1:00 pm Pacific time we are holding a Mystery Bag sale. We started this last summer when we had mill ends pouring out of our ears. Unfortunately mills ends are just a fact of life in our industry. Sometimes you have a whole lot and sometimes not so much. I prefer the not so much. This year is better then last year by far. Yay for progress!

Anyway… we dump them all in any bin we can find and I have my hue matching way with them. It actually makes me feel a wee bit better about having mill ends and has given me all sorts of paring ideas you’ll see soonish. Definitely a silver lining in every cloud if you know where to look.

As I said in the newsletter and on the product page for these, they go pretty fast, especially the lightweight.

Here’s the link to the product page. Jess and I will make turn on the ordering at 1:00.

Have you noticed that theme of the past few weeks is mystery. I have and as someone who had all kinds of not so fun surprises this week there is a good side and a not soo good side to mysteries. I feel like we took care of more challenging side already so now onto the colorful goodness.

Our Interval Mystery KAL dyeing is moving right along. We have fixed our BFL Fingering issue. You can read more about that in the previous blog post. If you ordered before June 4th at 2:00 pm then you will receive the BFL Fingering. We are able to fill all the orders we took for it. We then turned it off and problem solved as only knitters can. While we are waiting for our new shipment of BFL Fingering we decided to offer this yarn I’ve been thinking about bringing in. BFL Fingering Superwash as an alternative and we put that up with a note on the website. It’s a really nice yarn in it’s own right. My only hesitation on offering it as a regular Blue Moon yarn is that I feel hard and fast for the other one and having 2 BFL Fingerings seemed a bit much. So my dear knitters, you fall head over heels over this yarn do let me know.

Earlier in the week before the proverbial poo hit the fan I promised Chrissy some more hue duo pics. Chrissy here they are, sorry for the delay!!

Haida Fledge-Brick

Pond Scum haida

Passive Aggressive Green -Haida Fedge

Limestone-Haida Fledge

Gourdy-Haida Fledge

Corvid-Bleck

Ok I am off to the barn to pack and ship and pack and ship and pack and ship.

So very much more. Holy cow this day has exploded into all kinds of craziness.

It’s so amazing when that happens right? You’re going along all efficient and happy, getting stuff done making plans even, then boom an ugly email shows up from the what looks like Paypal and it’s not. It’s evilness that if you hit the link it leads you into all sorts of trouble. Worst yet, it came from the sock summit email, which means we were hacked. So quick, we send out a bulk email warning knitters of this and then contact techies and Paypal and answer emails and… .

Luckily we caught it immediately and had an email out in the first 10 minutes and the site shut down within the hour. No financial info was gotten, because none was there to get, just emails. This craziness is one of the reason we do not keep financial information.

And here Tuesday was acting all innocent and helpful and even sunny and warm.

So we work on that issue and then we come to find that our supplier does not have as much BFL Fingering as thought. YIKES!!! We are having a knit a long with that yarn. (That sound you hear is me breathing into a bag.) Of course we checked on supplies before we even started Interval (because who starts a knit along not knowing?) but alas, now there is not the yarn we thought we had at the mill. They are working on getting more made and we hope to have an ETA on it by the end of this week.

In the meantime, in a roll with the punches and work with what you have kind of attitude, I am looking at some of our other yarns as substitutes (STR lightweight comes to mind, as it almost always does) and another BFL Fingering that is Superwash that we might be able to bring in for a short run for the interim. We can fill the orders we have. It’s just we can’t take any new ones right now. We are as sad as you are aobut this change. Sorry!

I’ll let you know more tomorrow when I check in with Star. I just wanted to get this up for now so you knew the details.